[2025] UKUT 141 (LC)

This appeal is against the dismissal by the First-tier Tribunal, Property Chamber (Judge Thorowgood) of an application by the appellant, Mr Bishop, for the determination of the boundary between a strip of land belonging to him known as ''The Avenue”, and the garden of Beacon Cottage, belonging to the respondent, Mrs Jaques. The Avenue provides access to a potential development site, also belonging to Mr Bishop, but it may not be wide enough to accommodate development if the boundary with Beacon Cottage is in the position identified by the FTT.

The FTT decided the position of the boundary by reference to an agreement reached in 1971 between the husband of the then owner of Beacon Cottage, Mrs Dewar, and the then owner of the Avenue, Mr Noble. It also found in favour of Mrs Jaques on two alternative grounds: first, that the boundary agreement of 1971 was in accordance with the paper title established on a conveyance of Beacon Cottage in 1949 out of the larger estate of which it was formerly part; and secondly, if both of the previous findings were wrong, that the owners of Beacon Cottage had been in adverse possession of the disputed portion of The Avenue since at least 1980 and had acquired title to it before the commencement of the Land Registration Act 2002.

Mr Bishop was granted permission to appeal by this Tribunal. For the appeal to succeed, and for Mr Bishop to establish that the boundary of the Avenue is where he believes it to be, he will have to show that the FTT was wrong in all three of its conclusions.

Mr Bishop had represented himself at the hearing before the FTT, and he prepared his own grounds of appeal, but he was represented at the hearing of the appeal by Mr Oliver Ingham. Mrs Jaques was represented, as she had been before the FTT, by Mr Simon Williams. I am grateful to them for their submissions.